Municipal, commercial and industrial operations are being pushed into improving the quality of their stormwater discharges. A major problem associated with current state-of-the-art treatment processes is that they do not consistently produce a stormwater discharge that meets compliance standards and/or they are expensive to purchase/install and difficult to maintain.
Many state and federal environmental authorities are encouraging stormwater discharge permit holders to consider using organic filter media as a method of achieving stormwater compliance. This is tough to do due to the lack of a proper, general purpose filter housing that can be easily adjusted to various site constraints and/or requirements. Nonetheless, there are several known gabion assemblies (including those disclosed in, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,483,640; 5,636,938; 5,820,762; 6,368,017; 7,128,498; and 7,670,082) that have been used from time to time to treat stormwater discharges. These prior art assemblies are generally not always effective at achieving stringent stormwater discharge standards.
Accordingly, and although various gabion assemblies are known in the art, there is still a need in the art for new and improved multi-compartment gabion assemblies and systems for treating stormwater run-off and/or discharges. The present invention fulfills these needs and provides for further related advantages.